Suggested location? - 5 - 6 month old.

SunshineSteve

Hi

We are a young family with a five month old baby looking to book a simple sun holiday. The most important things for us are that the accommodation is nice / clean, food is good and the weather is nice :-)

I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations as this is the first time we will travel with our baby. Any tips / advice / obstacles?

Dublin_Mom

SunshineSteve wrote: »

Hi

We are a young family with a five month old baby looking to book a simple sun holiday. The most important things for us are that the accommodation is nice / clean, food is good and the weather is nice :-)

I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations as this is the first time we will travel with our baby. Any tips / advice / obstacles?

Really anywhere you fancy, baby at that age is very portable.
I have 2 (14 months apart) and when they were v young we brought them to the U.S, Italy, Turkey, Sicily.
Look at any resort in Spain . Also Club Med do baby clubs where you can leave baby for a couple of hours (or longer!) to get a break .

Enjoy!

Eponymous

Hi.

When our first was 3 months old we travelled to Nice as we had free accommodation there. Travelling was pretty straightforward - you just need to plan. As Dublin Mom says, babies are very portable.

Our second is due any day and we're travelling to Lanzarote in July to a place we've stayed before so that there's no unknowns, we know the destination, the availability of baby stuff and as a holiday destination it's extremely family friendly.

As for tips and advice, the most stressful part is getting through the airport. My tips in the order you need them:

• Pre-book your seats to ensure you're together. Might seem a bit odd, but looking at our flight out for our holiday there are currently only 3 rows were we could all sit together and that flight isn't til JULY! Waiting until check-in time and hoping you end up together might not work out for you.
• Get the buggy tagged at check-in and take it through with you. You then leave it at the steps/jet-bridge when boarding and collect it when you get off at the destination (although some airports send it through with the rest of the luggage).
• Baby formula/milk. You're allowed take this in addition to your allowance for liquids through security. My advice is to buy small cartons of pre-made formula, such as Cow and Gate. If mum is breastfeeding, that's one less hassle.
• When you get to security, this is where teamwork comes to play. One of you look after baby, the other looks after everything else. Have all liquids in an easy to grab location in the bags so that you can just reach in and get them to place in the tray. Have the baby OUT of the buggy and collapse the buggy before you get to the scanners. Wear flat shoes/trainers in order to avoid having to remove footwear and likewise remove belts etc and place them in your bag before you go through security so that there's no faffing about in the queue. This might seem like a lot, but if you're disorganised it can make the whole thing very stressful and security tend to be more helpful to you if you seem to have your sh1t together. Likewise, if you're travelling at a busy time, some people on commuter flights can be quite rude - adding to the stress! We've travelled a lot with our daughter in her four years on the planet and following this advice has been great.
• Have Calpol/Baby Neurofen on standby. And a spoon!
• When the plane is descending it's helpful if the baby has a feed then or has a soother to suck on to assist with the ears popping.

Hope that's helpful for you and not scary. It seems like there's a lot, but honestly, once you have yourself organised it's a doddle.

jt_dublin

Eponymous wrote: »

As for tips and advice, the most stressful part is getting through the airport. My tips in the order you need them:

Another airport tip you could possible consider is using Airport Genie to go through the fast track security lane. You never know how busy the airport will be and it might just ease things for you, rather than spending time in the queue. They also text you a few times telling if you the flight is departing on time, check in area, gate number etc...

It cost's €5.95 per adult, €2.45 per child and free for infants. This price includes a coffee (nice ones like a Latte, and you can choose any size).

We use it a lot of the time and it is a good service.

Here is the link

http://www.airportgenie.com/

Eponymous

jt_dublin wrote: »

Another airport tip you could possible consider is using Airport Genie to go through the fast track security lane. You never know how busy the airport will be and it might just ease things for you, rather than spending time in the queue. They also text you a few times telling if you the flight is departing on time, check in area, gate number etc...

It cost's €5.95 per adult, €2.45 per child and free for infants. This price includes a coffee (nice ones like a Latte, and you can choose any size).

We use it a lot of the time and it is a good service.

Here is the link

http://www.airportgenie.com/

I've never used it myself although just looking at it now, it does seem worthwhile, particularly as we'd always have a coffee having cleared security anyway so that offsets some of the cost!

stantheman8

Where did you decide on SunshineSteve?
We are on the same search and considering Italy, Spain, Portugal - but would love to hear some ideas from you or others who have had good experiences.